


in a web that is my own, i begin again

by Schmuzz



Series: heard from your mother (she don't recognize you) [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dean? Possibly going Through It but he's trying, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, M/M, Pre-Canon, Young Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:48:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29906877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schmuzz/pseuds/Schmuzz
Summary: It’s fine, really. Cas has seen him at his worst - bleeding out, waxing poetically about Dr. Sexy reruns, on the verge of death, admiring the thread count on t-shirts when they go thrifting - sex is sex, is the thing. Sex with Cas should be simple.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: heard from your mother (she don't recognize you) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2199102
Comments: 5
Kudos: 55





	in a web that is my own, i begin again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rachelbee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rachelbee/gifts).



> takes place sometime during chapter 26 of 'heard from your mother (she don't recognize you)'. tbh if you just know the premise of that fic (post 15.18 Cas wakes up sans memories in 2003 and he and dean end up hunting together and getting into a relationship before s1 begins) this will probably make enough sense to have fun reading. 
> 
> content warnings in the end notes.

_Winchesters worry werewolves,_ is what Dean thinks to himself, once John fires the last silver bullet into the last of the hulking beasts. It was something John told him when he was a kid, something he himself told Sammy before going off to help dad when he was fourteen. The alliteration makes it catchy, reminds him of those rubber bracelets with phrases stamped into them that stack up on people’s wrists. He can see it in his head - _W. W. W,_ all cheap charm without the magic attached.

They burn the remains to not give the locals any ideas, and drive off into the night. Dean feels blood crusting under his fingernails, his shoulder pulling from where one of the things pinned him down, just before John shot it.

“You gotta be more careful,” he had reprimanded, like usual. 

They don’t meet back at a motel - they don’t meet back up at all. John said he had to finish this thing tonight, get going to Wisconsin. Following the trail of something he never lets Dean see. 

“Hey,” he says into the receiver. It’s late, but that’s never stopped him before.

_“How did the hunt go?”_

“Fine. They’re taken care of. Still in Toledo?”

_“Right off the highway, it’s a Motel 6.”_

“Ooh, fancy. I’ll be there soon.” 

-

He stops at a gas station, scrubs his hands in the bathroom before going inside. He buys beer, peanut M&Ms, waltzes up to the counter where a clerk is flipping through a magazine. 

“Some Marlboros and a pack of Trojans,” he says, grinning.

The clerk raises an eyebrow. “You mean it?” she says, already reaching for the cigarettes. He does actually need a new pack, burned through his last smoke on his way up to meet John, windows rolled down in the hot weather so his dad couldn’t sniff out the bad habit. The condoms, not so much. He hasn’t used them since he had his freak out back in early spring when he decided to fuck any girl that smiled at him, back before he and Cas -

He and Cas didn’t, haven’t. Not yet. Some fear mongering part of his brain even thinks not ever. 

“Yeah, obviously,” he says, because he’s not about to admit any of that to a nineteen year old clerk _or_ admit he doesn’t need a stack of condoms ready for - whatever. 

“Fourteen-ten,” she says, putting it all in a bag. “Want a receipt?”

“Nah,” he says, tossing over a fake credit card. He wonders, idly, if the people he scams ever get into arguments from his random purchases. If next week ol’ Harry Sunderland is going to get into a fight with his wife when she opens the statement and realizes he spent money on cigarettes, candy, and condoms somewhere two hundred miles from them. “Have a good night,” he says.

“You too,” says the clerk, eyes drifting back to her magazine. Dean puts his stuff in the passenger seat, fuels up, and gets going. He makes it twenty minutes before he cracks the window and breaks open the Marlboro pack. 

-

He pulls up to the 1994 blue eyesore that is Cas’s car about an hour later. It’s almost two in the morning. He knocks on the door, feeling old sweat under his clothes, the way his shoulder pulls, the humid air heavy. There’s some scraggly woods just behind the building, maybe half an acre that’s just a thin, long line of trees and brush that didn’t get cut down when the motel was built. He thinks he can see some yellow-green dots in the distance, there. Lightning bugs or some residual flashbang from the gun playing tricks on him.

Cas opens the door and he heads inside. “Brought provisions,” he says, setting down his stuff and tossing Cas a beer. The TV is on low, a book face-down in the messed up covers of one of the beds. 

Cas cracks it open but doesn’t take a sip yet. “How was it?” Dean takes off the jacket he wore, his over shirt. 

“Eh, you know, running around in the woods, felt like a real Van Helsing.” His face must go into a grimace when he strips out of the flannel, because Cas sets his beer down and gets closer.

“Hurt anywhere?”

“Just the shoulder,” he admits. Cas puts a hand on it, closes his eyes, breathes out through his mouth. The ache dissipates into nothing, but he circles it experimentally, just in case. “Thanks.” Cas’s hand trails up from the shoulder to his neck, his jaw. He kisses him and Dean’s heart squeezes for a second before he remembers it’s just them, in a locked room, with no one he knows around. He leans into it, eyes closed, runs a hand through Cas’s hair. It always ends just short of where Dean’s mind thinks it will, and he’s left touching along the bare nape of his neck instead. 

“Going to shower?” Cas asks, when they pull away. Dean nods, mind already going somewhere else. 

The spray is hot and soothing on muscles that don’t ache anymore. He soaps up his body, double checking his nails really are clean. He thinks about the bag that’s still out by his duffel, if Cas is going to go through it and think about - he swallows. It’s fine, really. Cas has seen him at his worst - bleeding out, waxing poetically about Dr. Sexy reruns, on the verge of death, admiring the thread count on t-shirts when they go thrifting - sex is sex, is the thing. Sex with Cas should be simple.

He finishes washing up, puts on some underwear, and opens the door to the motel room. The plastic bag is on the bed Cas is on, M&M bag open, the other box by his thigh where his book is resting. 

Dean swallows, steps up to the foot of the bed, angles Cas’s head up into a kiss. Cas makes a noise against his mouth, hand dropping his book to thread up into Dean’s hair, tugging at the wet strands, urging him down until Cas is on his back and Dean’s on top of him and it’s good, really good, something he’s done with Cas a dozen times in a dozen different motel rooms. Something about the noises he makes, like he’s surprised how good it feels every time, gets Dean stupidly hard in no time flat. He pulls back, Cas’s eyes distracted, a lazy, pleased smile curling his now-red lips.

“Did you want to?” his low voice snaps Dean back into focus. “Did you want to try it tonight?”

Dean swallows again. The AC clicks on to the left of him. He tells himself that’s why his skin is prickled with goosebumps now. “Yeah,” he breathes out, “yeah, Cas.” 

They kick off Cas’s book, the snacks, the clothes Cas still has on. Let them fall to the ground while that little cardboard box gets prime real estate up by the nightstand. Dean kisses down Cas’s neck, all pale, smooth skin, scar-free. He undoes his jeans and sees that tattoo emerging, low on his hip, fingers dancing across it as he slips his hand under Cas’s boxers and stays there, holding his bare hip, half cupping his ass while they kiss and grind against each other and all of that is - it’s good, it’s fun. Dean never really second guesses it. But then Cas rolls them over and asks how they want to do this and Dean stops. Stares up at Cas, hands in his underwear, all the organs in his chest seizing up like he’s run a marathon.

“Um,” he says.

“I’ve looked up some stuff,” Cas admits, “but I guess neither of us have actually…”

“No, yeah,” Dean says, harried. “You can. Go ‘head. That’s.” He nods, smiles. Cas kisses him again and Dean just tries to lay back and make it something good, easy, tries to hold the good feelings he had moments ago in his hands.

He’s the good looking one - that’s what people told him, growing up - still do. Delicate features, too pretty to be a hunter, less of a dirt-smeared, devilish rogue and more like someone who ends up on his back. But this is Cas, he reminds himself. Cas is the one who likes collecting soft sweaters and drinking fancy, caffeinated drinks with made up names. He's the one that reads Cormac McCarthy novels back to back with Nora Roberts. He kills the monsters and heals Dean, endless power neither of them understand flowing from the same hands; wide palms, long fingers, cupping Dean’s jaw. 

_It’s Cas,_ he tells himself. He tries to make it good for him, tries to ignore all the other shit that’s been buried in his brain, needling its way up to the surface. 

Between one minute and the next he's trapped thinking about what he had to do to get food, pay rent, when John was gone too long. It's not the same thing at all. They're in a semi-decent motel, a local weather channel buzzing on low volume, the lamp by his head bathing the room in soft light. He remembers buzzing fluorescent lights, or the total darkness of spaces behind buildings where no one would find them. Cramped car benches, foreign smells.

Cas just smells clean, like Dean's stuff and store brand laundry detergent. Cas is kissing him, hand stroking through his hair, down the back of his neck, no real pressure, he could break away if he wants to. Dean tries to relax into it, thinks he almost does, when the hand on his stomach goes to the front of his underwear. That's when he stills, abdomen clenching.

Cas pulls back. "Alright?"

"Yeah, uh. We can - I just - give me a sec, okay?" Cas takes his hands away and Dean tries not to be so obvious about the deep breaths he's forcing into his lungs. They're in their motel room. He knows their toothbrushes are stuck in the complimentary plastic cups by the sink. A pair of Cas's jeans are still in his duffel from the last time they went to the laundromat. Cas is wearing a pair of socks Dean let him borrow. They're stretched out, close but not even touching. It should be fine. 

"Dean?"

"Uh, you think," he swallows, tongue feeling too big in his mouth. "The - we can -" he glances at the clock. It's too late to go out anywhere in a town this tiny. The case Cas was on here is finished, anyway. He's stuck here. Cas puts a hand on his cheek. His eyes are dark in the dim lighting.

"It's okay," he murmurs.

Dean forces a smile. "Yeah. Yeah. Just gotta - get over it, right?" Cas frowns.

"No, I meant - we can stay like this. We don't have to do anything else."

"Come on, Cas, really?" he says it like they're talking about a girl Cas adamantly refuses to pick up, like he should be elbowing him in the side and leering. 

Cas kisses him, quick and gentle. "I'm just happy to be here with you," he says, earnest as always. Dean can't look at him, so he lays on his back, staring at the ceiling.

"Sap," he says, voice almost breaking. Cas comes after him, putting an arm over his middle, cheek on his shoulder. He doesn't ask if that's alright - thank someone. Dean doesn't think he could survive the embarrassment if he did.

They don't speak for a while. Dean wants to offer up an explanation, even though Cas seems fine without one. His heart thuds in his chest as he searches for the words.

"It's just," he starts, faltering. "With women it's different than… guys. You know?"

Cas pauses. "The mechanics?"

Dean snorts at the phrasing. "Um. No. Not for me. It's like." He bites his lip. Doesn't say anything for a minute. Two. Cas's thumb is stroking along his floating ribs, back and forth. "I did stuff. When I was younger. With dudes. Cause I had to." Cas's thumb keeps moving. His only acknowledgment he hears Dean at all is a hum. "Had to… I mean, there were other ways, I guess. But sometimes, for rent or food or - um." He bites his lip again. He thought he could say more. It's been nearly a decade since he last had to do that. Once he hit eighteen John gave him the car, so if he and Sammy landed in dire straits they could sleep in the Impala to make the cash stretch longer. He could blend into crowds better, too, when he was at bars. Wait for last call to find the drunkest guys and lift some cash.

He swears he can hear a buzzing of lights anyway, and his shoulders hitch up, he doesn't realize they are until Cas has to lean up on his elbow.

"Okay," he manages, "story time's over."

Cas looks at him. He doesn't know what that expression is. Cas just nods. "Alright." He hesitates, then leans down to kiss Dean's mouth again. Fingers run down his cheek. "Thanks for telling me."

"Shut up," he says, looking determinedly back at the clock. "Didn't tell you anything."

"It's hard for you to talk about."

"Yeah, no shit."

"You told me enough. It is enough, Dean. Some things can stay in the past."

"What if - this - we just can't? If I can't?"

Cas shrugs, fingers trailing down to Dean's chest, tracing nonsense patterns. "Then we can't. Or we try stuff until we find what works. I'm not picky."

Dean could just not look the damn gift horse in the fucking mouth and leave it at that. He really, really should. "Why're you so damn nice to me?" he says instead, sitting up and crossing his arms, trying to hold himself in place.

"Maybe because I like you."

"I'm serious."

"So am I." Dean turns back and thumps Cas on the chest. "There's nothing else to it, Dean. Really."

"Yeah. I guess."

"You're nice to me too, you know," Cas says.

"Me? Have you met me? I can't say nice shit if you point a gun to my head."

"So you don't say it. You show it." Dean stares at him, and Cas nudges him with his foot, still clad in one of Dean's borrowed socks. 

"So I give you stuff sometimes," Dean mumbles, "big deal."

"Sometimes?" Dean tries to think about it, but really, he gives Cas some of his food, or they swap meals halfway through. He knows some of his shirts and sunglasses are now in Cas's possession, and he'll change the tires or oil in that stupid Honda because Cas doesn't know how, but that's just practical, isn't it? He says as much to Cas, who shakes his head all fond.

“Who taught me how baseball works? And hockey, football, soccer, cricket,” Cas counts on his fingers.

“I definitely made up the cricket rules. I don’t think that motel should’ve been able to get the BBC.”

“Taught me how to pick locks,” Cas counters.

“Yeah. Because watching you trying to do a B-n'-E was frankly depressing.”

“Gave me some lock picks, too.”

“I had an extra set laying around,” Dean says, looking away. Cas leans forward, hooks his chin over Dean's shoulder, puts arms around Dean's middle.

“Take me to any roadside attraction," he adds, after a moment of silence.

“Well, that’s more for me than anything,” he protests. He feels Cas smile against the skin of his shoulder. Dean turns his head to glare at him, and his smile goes even wider until it’s a full on grin. “Shut _up,_ Cas.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Oh, you said a lot of something, alright.” He turns around and rolls them over, playfighting, stupid kid shit. Cas laughs, though - Cas never got to do this before either, he thinks. Fingers tickle his side and he laughs too, and maybe it is fine, really. 

-

Dean buys Cas a new disposable camera. "Fucking price gouging," he says, ripping through the packaging and handing it over.

"You didn't have to get me one," Cas says, already walking over to the little tourist onlook where a bunch of Americans are crowded. There was a water wraith up by the New York border that got wrapped up quick, and Cas still hasn't seen Niagara Falls. Well, until now.

"But then what about your scrapbook?" Dean mocks, leaning against the fence and watching however many tons of water spill down into the rocks below. Apparently it's better on the Canadian side, but Dean takes what he can get.

Cas just rolls his eyes, stupidly fond. "Thank you, Dean," he says. Dean thinks its unfair someone can just cut through him like that, see to the heart of him with just a side-eye glance.

"Yeah, whatever," he says, stupidly petulant and stupidly happy, underneath.

\- 

Cas brings it up next time, a month later. Dean is stuck over Cas’s prone form, the guy knocked unconscious by a vicious shapeshifter wearing Cas’s face. It’s weird to see it all twisted up like that, micro-expressions turning his placid, content face into one of contempt.

“Got a lot of messed up shit in here,” it says, tapping his temple. “Must be the reason why he’s sticking around with you.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Dean says, backed into a corner. Cas groans by his feet and Dean leaps forward, getting out the knife by his hip, the one Cas gave him. He gets hit in the solar plexus, wind rushing out of him, and an elbow into his eye socket, depth perception going warped. But that doesn’t matter - the knife does its job, sinking deep into the monster’s belly and making it thrash and scream. Dean sees the blurry image of the thing that isn't Cas, surprise on its features as it dies in a way it doesn’t expect. He stabs it in the heart, just to be safe, and gathers the real Cas up, hauling him back to the car. 

“I’m sorry it had to look like that,” Cas tells him, hands on Dean’s face, healing him.

“It’s part of the job,” Dean says, heart not really in it. Cas kisses him, then again, and again, and as much as Dean doesn’t want to think about it, the image of the shapeshifter wearing Cas’s face, that small, secret smile turned into a malicious smirk, is still burned into his mind. He presses close enough to Cas like if he just edges closer it’ll be erased, but that doesn’t work. Instead it makes him think of that crocotta they fought that took Cas's voice, the random civilian that had the same dark-hair-blue-eyes that got killed by a spirit. Hunts that didn't end with Cas dead but remind him it's always possible, for as indestructible as Cas appears. 

“What about,” Cas says, “with me instead?” Dean doesn’t get it, sweaty, panting, half-hard, until he does. He waits for the pressure to run down his spine, waits to freeze, waits to disappoint Cas.

“Um, yeah,” he says. “Let’s try it.” 

Cas can be hurt, Dean knows. He’s seen it before. But it doesn’t seem to stick for longer than a minute or two. “Tell me and we can stop,” Cas says, even though he’s the one underneath Dean, the one who should feel vulnerable. 

“Okay,” he says. Cas makes those noises again, when Dean stretches him open - like he’s surprised that he feels as good as he does. “Alright?” Cas nods, breathing harder, eyes caught on where their bodies are connected.

It’s different like this, more of what Dean’s used to. He falls against Cas and clings tight, ignores what they saw that night, what else is outside the walls of their room. Cas holds him, panting into his ear. His leg hitches up around Dean’s hip when he comes like he can’t bear to untwine himself from Dean and Dean - lets him. Wants to stay right here, forever. Always.

“Okay?” Cas says, after.

“Are you?” Cas hums, noses along Dean’s cheek. Dean closes his eyes, smiles. 

“Yeah,” he squeezes Cas tight, feels his leg and arm anchor them together, sighs. “I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> this is a birthday present for @rachelbee! this grew out of a scene that i really enjoyed and showed to her in google docs, but couldn't think of where it would fall within the larger story of the heard from your mother au, so i added in some more content to make it its own oneshot :)
> 
> *content warnings: dean has trouble having penetrative sex with cas due to his past experiences using sex work with older men to help provide for him and his brother, something i reference in my main fic but don't really expand on too much. i felt this would be a hurdle dean would want to work through with cas in their personal relationship, but like i said, couldn't find a good place to give this sort of subject the space it needed. while dean and cas don't have great communication skills in terms of consent and expectations in this story, they do work through this issue together and i expect more reference of this aspect of their relationship will come up in the main fic later.


End file.
